Where did the English Cook family come from? What is the English Cook family crest and coat of arms? When did the Cook family first arrive in the United States? Where did the various branches of the family go? What is the Cook family history?

The saga of the name Cook follows a line reaching back through history to the days of the Anglo-Saxon tribes in Britain. It was a name for someone who worked as a cook, a seller of cooked meats, or a keeper of an eating-house. The surname Cook is derived from the Old English word coc, which means cook.

Before the last few hundred years, the English language had no fast system of spelling rules. For that reason, spelling variations are commonly found in early Anglo-Saxon surnames. Over the years, many variations of the name Cook were recorded, including Cooke, Cook, Cocus and others.

First found in Essex where they held a family seat from very ancient times. The first found record the name was Aelfsige Coc (c.950) who is recorded in an early reference of Anglo Saxon Wills, more than one hundred years before the Norman Conquest and the arrival of Duke William at Hastings in 1066.

To escape oppression and starvation at that time, many English families left for the "open frontiers" of the New World with all its perceived opportunities. In droves people migrated to the many British colonies, those in North America in particular, paying high rates for passages in cramped, unsafe ships. Although many of the settlers did not make the long passage alive, those who did see the shores of North America perceived great opportunities before them. Many of the families that came from England went on to make essential contributions to the emerging nations of Canada and the United States. Research into various historical records revealed some of first members of the Cook family emigrate to North America:

James Cook (1728-1779), born in Yorkshire, the famous navigator who explored the St. Lawrence, the shores of Newfoundland, circumnavigated the globe charting New Zealand, Australia and explored much of the Pacific and Southern Ocean. His last voyage was to Hawaii in 1779 where he was killed by the natives

Mrs. Selena Cook, (née Rogers), aged 22, English Second Class passenger from Oxford, Oxfordshire who sailed aboard the RMS Titanic and survived the sinking escaping on life boat 14

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Our PDF Coat of Arms + Extended History product is the whole package all in one. With a full color Coat of Arms along with a very detailed History, full symbolism, bibliography and settlers listed by the centuries.

The Cook Family Crest was acquired from the Houseofnames.com archives. The Cook Family Crest was drawn according to heraldic standards based on published blazons. We generally include the oldest published family crest once associated with each surname.